My plane is now in 24 years old and, as it was always hangared, the original paint is still mostly in excellent shape.
The exception to this are the leading edges of the wings and the elevator which accumulated a few smallish dents from stones over the years. Also, the paint over the rivets in those areas has been a bit washed away over the years as these are also the areas which get cleaned from bugs after every flight while the rest of the plane might get a ritual cleansing twice a year.
I have been thinking about getting foils applied to the above mentioned areas to cover them up a bit. The shape of the foils I have in mind is to just cover the leading edges and go a bit further aft both top and bottom, basically so that the front of the wing would be covered as if it had de-icing boots. There are some foils avaibable from 3M which they also recommend for use on planes. I have spoken to my maintenance shop, they would not have a problem with such installation and there are allegedly other planes around which had similar work done although I have not yet seen one.
Does anybody have any experience with such matter? Any advice on the dos, don’ts and gotchas would be appreciated.
I have them on both inside leading edges outside the TKS panels and on the wheel pants and on the struts!
Just TODAY i was looking at some foils, because i would like to replace some … 3 M seem fine. The original sets for the Cirrus are terribly expensive and I will not invest € 500 in those precut foils …
Once I have found out more I’ll report back!
A friend of mine used to be the 3M sales rep for these foils in SoCal. We did chat about them once or twice and from what I can gather, they work fine and are widely used in aviation. You do need a shop that knows what it does in applying them, though.
In RV 8 we covered when new all leading edges wing, vertical, horizontal and lg struts even boots with 3M polutheran 4 " side tape. Has been for 7 years and bonding is transparent like in installation. Recommended!
On the lancair Columbia this is called out in the MM and is used on the wings and H stab leading edges.
In later models it’s in virtually all the edges that get abused : gear legs, wheel fairings, door sills, etc.
I got an offer from a guy who was been wrapping cars in foils for the past 20 years. The 3M foils he suggests to use, he confirmed with 3M that those are the best choice for the intended use on a plane, come to ca. EUR 230 materials cost to cover the areas I described above.
@flyer59
I’ll send you the specs for the foils via e-mail.
Very nice, and a good idea. Thank you.
Thank you for your feedback.
A flying buddy of mine is considering a similar installation on his plane. However, he only wants to have the foil applied on an area stretching probably 10 cm from the leading edge of the wing on both the upper and lower part of the wing. His reasoning is that the foil might otherwise reach into an area on the upper wing which has lower pressure and therefore might suffer undue stress. In the extreme, this might lead to the foil being “suctioned off” the wing over time.
I am not sure whether I would agree to that train of thought with the consequences mentioned but maybe some might have thoughts on that.
I would, however, like to have a larger area of the wing covered in foil, probably stretching 30 cm from the leading edge to fully cover the areas which get bug splatter.
we use them all the time on race cars as on the leading edge of the front wings is very close to the ground and therefore prone for stone chips.
but we do see in the windtunnel some loss of performance so we have stoped using them (but that performance loss can be completly neglegted on airplanes)
we also use the 3M stuff
Peter_Paul wrote:
but we do see in the windtunnel some loss of performance so we have stoped using them (but that performance loss can be completly neglegted on airplanes)
Actually, when used to smooth over panel joins and such, vinyl tape is very effective in cleaning up aerodynamics.
